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Archive for October, 2013

So I read this one book. Eleanor & Park. And because my mind is currently a dry inkwell (that was for you, my dear gang), I’m gonna post my review of it. Yeah. (This review also appears on Goodreads.)

I didn’t realize it was possible for a book to be so real. Sometimes I stopped reading and did a double-take because it was just so dang believable.

I don’t read many YA contemporaries (well, this isn’t necessarily contemporary…It takes place in 1986…But it’s like a YA contemporary.). To be completely truthful, I prefer to stick with the blood-guts-save-the-world-and-maybe-fall-in-love-with-a-devilish-assassin stories. But the thing is, I can’t always relate with those stories. I’d love to be a crazy poisoner/assassin/ninja who goes on quests and can do flips and has mad aim with a bow. (And always manages to seduce the aforementioned devilish assassin who can also do flips and has mad aim with throwing knives or something.) But I’m not. Unfortunate, I know, but true. And that isn’t really the point of fantasy/sci-fi novels, anyway. Their purpose is expressly to be out of the ordinary, et cetera. The point of YA contemporaries, however, is to be completely in the ordinary, completely believable, and completely real.

Eleanor & Park was so real, it was scary.

Rainbow Rowell managed to capture the very essence of teen romance, and all of the little things that make it so special. The simple joy you get whenever you’re around the Other Person. The way the lovely memories repeat nonstop in your head during any given moment of the day. The way you store up all of the little moments that you can, just in case you won’t get any more. The way you never ever want to think about the After–when “us” ceases to be. (If it ever ceases to be.) And most of all, the crazy feeling of wonder you get when you realize that the Other Person really, truly likes you just as much as you like them.

All of these little things matter. And all of them were in Eleanor & Park. Crazy sauce, right?

I could go on for ages about the beauty of the characters, the simplicity and elegance of the writing, the realness of the dialogue, and the emotions that were so eloquently conveyed. But I don’t need to do that. All of those aspects were exceptionally well done, and that’s great. But what’s most important is that Eleanor & Park was so very real to me, so relatable to me, that those other things don’t even matter.

This book spoke to me so much, and it made me feel so many emotions. It almost, almost made me cry. This is a good thing. This means you should find an edition of this book by whatever means necessary, and read it.

Read it right now.

Rating: 5/5 gold stars

And there you have your daily dose of philosophical words! Have you read Eleanor & Park ? (If you haven’t, I pity you. If you haven’t and don’t plan to, I…that’s sad. Wow.) Whaddya think of it? Let me know in the comments! Yay!